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March 19 2012. Songhkla - Sai Buri (141 of 2205 km) - Day 18

We restart our journey from Songhkla and we watch the sun rise on the 5004 coastal road.A truly beautiful rural road that sometimes is actually contested by land and sea.

We find a very good refreshment spot with a view of the ocean.

We're getting inside Thailand's deep south.This is a Muslim majority region and it's always been full of tensions between separatists and government forces.

From the city of Pattani and on we go through an endless number of checkpoints.Policemen and soldiers greet us warmly.

To get to sai Buri we decide to ride along the coastal road.We leave the main road and head towards Panare.
We still get to a couple of checkpoints...and they stop us.They explain to us that the road along the coast is particularly dangerous.We have to go back and take the main road.Our problem now is the timeframe,If we go back we will never be able to reach our destination before sunset.So we are invited to spend the night at the Police station.They welcome us kindly.They let us rest,they offered us food and water.Finally they decided it was a better idea to take us to Sai Buri by car(about 30 km).They let us on a regular car and we leave with two other Police cars escorting us.